Boys’ Swim Team Crushes NMH At Home

This past Saturday, the boys’ varsity swim team defeated its opponent, Northfield Mount Hermon, with a 103-69 final score. NMH drove to Exeter’s pool to put up a good fight, but by the end of the diving event at the halfway point, it was clear that Big Red was going to win as it was in the lead by 53 points. “They tried their best but we still won by a huge margin,” prep Andrew Sun said.

NMH is a team known less for its skill, but more for its good-heartedness and notable sportsmanship. Its team usually competes with Exeter’s junior varsity team. This allowed Big Red’s swim team members to explore new events and have fun before Interschols, which will be in less than a month. “We had the chance to swim events we didn’t usually get to,” upper Joaquin Riojas said. “Because of this, there were some really surprising and exciting swims.”

“We had the chance to swim events we didn’t usually get to. Because of this, there were some really surprising and exciting swims.”

Big Red dominated most of the events, placing in the top three spots in the 200 individual medley (IM), 50 freestyle, 100 butterfly, 100 freestyle and 500 freestyle. These were just the events for which score was kept. Since Exeter was winning by so much, Don Mills stopped counting the points after the 500 free and put swimmers in exhibition to events they had never done before.

Lower Peter Tuchler, a strong distance swimmer, competed in the 100 yard breaststroke and easily grasped first place. Captain Joel Lotzkar, whose strength lies in the 200 IM and 100 breaststroke, swam in the 200 freestyle, managing to win the event without much competition from NMH. Upper Taylor Walshe, normally a sprinter, also raced in the 200 yard freestyle, grasping second place behind Lotzkar with an impressive time of 1:53.50.

By the time the 400 free relay came around near the end, the diving team also got the chance to compete in the swim portion of the meet. The 200 free exhibition relay consisted of swimmers lower Jeremy Xu and upper Jackson Parell, along with divers lower Andrew Dawe and senior Will Ayscue. They placed fourth overall behind Exeter’s three non-exhibition teams, and a whole two seconds in front of NMH’s first relay team. 

“Overall, we had fun racing in a mix of events and are looking forward to three more weeks of training in preparation for Loomis, Andover and New Englands,” Lotzkar said.

This upcoming weekend, Exeter will be facing much tougher competition when they host Loomis. Last year, Loomis edged out the boys with a small victory, so the team is looking for some revenge. The team has now won three meets in a row, dominating its opponents, and they hope to use this momentum to their advantage.

Loomis has had a similar season to Exeter, losing and beating the same teams, which means that this will be one of the team’s closest meets in the season. Be sure to cheer on the boys as they challenge the Loomis team at 4:00 p.m. this Saturday, Feb. 11.